110 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



repairing tliat would have cost him half a day's journey to the 

 blacksmith, "wheelwright, or carpenter, and sometliing to pay 

 besides. Many such items of expense too would be saved if 

 more care was exercised in housing and protecting from the 

 ■weather all machines, implements and tools, — to have them 

 every night cleaned and put in proper places. 



One of the shrewdest, closest and best of our hill farmers in 

 the State, said to us, " We farmers don't think how much we 

 lose in not having a few handy tools by us for repairs. The time, 

 travel and patience wasted in borrowing and returning necessary 

 orconvenient tools, would, at a fair calculation, pay for them." A 

 great trouble is, however, that many farmers and farmers' boys, 

 abuse and neglect tools of all kinds ; but with such as we have 

 mentioned properly kept, a farmer may keep his buildings and 

 most of his implements and tools in repair. It makes a vast 

 difference, too, about having such jobs done, if the tools are 

 convenient. If the hammer and good nails are handy, the man 

 or boy will be much more likely to nail a loose board on the 

 barn, or tack a shingle, or drive on a fence board, than if he 

 has to use an old harrow tooth to pound with, and old wrought 

 iron nails, rusty, crooked and broken, saved from some old 

 torn-down shed of a former generation. Prompt attention in 

 this respect is especially necessary in repairing fences. As soon 

 as a gate begins to sag, destruction commences, and it should 

 be righted before it is racked to pieces ; if a rail is thrown off 

 or broken, or a fence board off, a cow will have her head over 

 or through, and the fence down in a short time after. There 

 is no way so efTectual to make brcachy cattle, as by neglecting 

 early rapairs on fences, and there is no greater nuisance on a 

 farm than a herd of cows and cattle, which have thus been 

 successfully educated to disregard party lines. 



In addition, however, to these small items, there is one great 

 ■waste, which covers and permeates every department of the 

 profession, and which obtains to a greater or less extent on 

 every farm. It is the misdirection of physical force ; or physical 

 power applied without a sufficient degree of skill or scientific 

 knowledge to make it available to the largest extent, under 

 existing conditions. The simplest illustration of this neglected 

 principle is perhaps the common lever. How often have we 



